Maid gets 2 years’ jail for theft at employer’s house

A domestic help has been sentenced to two years in jail by a Delhi court for stealing Rs 25,000 cash and gold ornaments from her employer’s house.

Metropolitan Magistrate Pawan Singh Rajawat handed down the jail term to Ruby, employed as a maid in a house in Subzi Mandi area here for almost two years, saying that she deserved no leniency from the court.

“The convict (woman) was employed as house maid and she has breached the faith and trust imposed by the complainant (employer) and chose to commit theft in the same house from where she was earning her bread.

“…Keeping in view the facts and circumstances of the case, no grounds for leniency against the convict are made out. Hence, the woman is sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for two years for the offence punishable under Section 381 (theft by clerk or servant of property in possession of master) of the IPC,” the magistrate said.

The court also imposed a fine of Rs 2,000 on her. While, convicting her, it also noted that the maid’s employer, Savita Bawa, and her relatives identified her correctly before it and the maid “failed to put any probable defence”.

According to the prosecution, in afternoon of September 16, 2013, when Savita was returning home after picking up her daughter from school, she saw Ruby coming out of the house with two polythene bags.

On inquiry, she lied that she was going to throw garbage outside, it said. When Savita went inside, she saw that her house had been ransacked and found missing her gold and pearl ornaments, cash worth Rs 25,000 and a mobile phone. She immediately informed the police and her relatives, it said.

The maid was arrested the next day by tracing her mobile phone location, the police said.

The maid, however, claimed that she had been falsely implicated by her employer and sought leniency from the court on the ground that she was a woman.